Euro MPs condemn UK over rendition flight 'collusion'

Euro MPs today joined condemnation of the UK and other European governments accused of colluding in secret CIA operations in the wake of the terrorist attacks on America on September 11 2001.

A report approved in Strasbourg after a year-long inquiry says more than 1,000 covert flights operated by the CIA have flown into European airspace or stopped over at European airports since then.

The so-called "extraordinary rendition" flights have been taking alleged terrorists all over the world for interrogation - including to countries not bound by any human rights code in the treatment of suspects.

The UK Government is singled out for co-operating with the CIA in sending three UK residents on rendition fights for questioning in connection with alleged terrorism.

And the report expresses "outrage" at a legal opinion provided by Michael Wood, former legal advisor to the Foreign Office, who said that "receiving or possessing" information extracted under torture was not in itself against international conventions banning torture, "in so far as there is no direct participation in the torture".

Mr Wood refused to give evidence to the European Parliament committee which conducted the inquiry, today's report points out.

London Liberal Democrat MEP Sarah Ludford said evidence given to the inquiry suggested that several EU governments either colluded actively with the CIA's rendition operations, or simply "turned a blind eye" to them.

Today's report carries no legal weight, and follows a separate report by human rights watchdog the Council of Europe last year which said the CIA ran a "global spider's web" of rendition flights, with European countries acting as staging posts.

The European Parliament report says the volume of the CIA flights using European airspace or airports was greatest in Germany, the UK and Ireland.